


Lost Through the Ages

by BigMammaLlama5



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, brief mentions of other supporting characters, tiny bits of history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7275412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigMammaLlama5/pseuds/BigMammaLlama5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of a Tumblr prompt: you stop aging once you reach the age of 18 and only start again once you meet your soul mate. This brief one shot explores a human Carmilla ageless at 18 for three centuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Through the Ages

**Author's Note:**

> Very lightly edited so please excuse any typos or wonky sentences! Thanks for reading. :)

In 1698 the Countess Mircalla Karnstein turned eighteen.

 

It was a hot and heady party, full of whirling dances and bubbly Champagne imported from the very best Gosset vineyards in France. The top most musicians in Styria were in attendance and playing their fingers to the bone as mobs of guests traipsed about the ballroom. Laughter and shouts carried over the hubbub and lively waltzes filled the airy chamber.

 

In the midst of it all, the young Countess was radiant in her blue and gold satin gown of rich embroidery and velvet trimmings. Inky black curls clung delicately to her flushed cheeks as she tossed her head back in laughter, a graceful hand carefully holding her rather full flute of amber wine away from her dress. A woven crown of snowy Edelweiss and red Carnations softened the sharp contours of her high cheeks and thin nose. She playfully cajoled the guests in her age group, teasing and poking fun as they shared stories from the last time they had visited. The conversation turned a bit more raucous when bets were placed on how long the Countesses’ youth would last-a game they initiated when the first of their friends turned eighteen. Now the Countess was the next to last, and had high hopes for a short period of pause like another young woman she knew had.

 

Shouts for more Champagne rang through out the room as the booming tenor of her father began the minute’s countdown.

 

_Fifty-five!_

 

Mircalla was pushed towards the center of the dance floor.

 

_Thirty-two!_

 

Her friends ushered her into a straight-backed chair.

 

_Twenty!_

 

Her father kissed her fondly on the cheek, his dark eyes sparkling with pride.

 

_Fourteen!_

 

A kiss from her mother and three younger brothers.

 

_Five!_

 

Her uncles found the legs of the chair.

 

_Four!_

 

Mircalla yelled with laughter and hastily handed her Champaign off to her mother.

 

_Three!_

 

Her fine boned hands gripped tightly at the seat.

 

_Two!_

 

Her stomach swooped as she sailed into the air, hoisted up on her chair.

 

_One!_

 

The bells tolled midnight. Now Countess Mircalla Karnstein could only wait and remain eighteen until united with her better half.

* * *

 

Styria was unusually quiet these days, many of the men had been recruited to serve for the war. It was the summer of 1759 and the Countess Mircalla Karnstein was sitting in a white wicker chair, enjoying her book. A folded old newspaper next to her feet screamed in black blocky print the defeat of the Prussians to the Russian Army at the Battle of Kay a week prior.

 

Or at least she was trying to read, the lines kept blurring before her dark eyes.

 

The month before she had helped bury her father next to her mother, and now she was the last of her siblings still un-aged and full of youth. All of her brothers now had children of their own and were well into their middle years, with graying hair and well defined laugh lines. She put on a strong face during visits, but late into the night she would sit with her siblings and drink an obscene amount of whatever liquor was provided, sinking into quiet melancholy and listen to stories of her many nieces and nephews. All of her peers had found their better half and moved on with their growing, some had even passed on. Her brothers consoled her that one day she would find herself a good husband.

 

She didn’t have the heart to tell them that a man would never suffice.

* * *

 

Vienna was lovely in the spring.

 

Mircalla Karnstein had moved from her family’s lands to the rapidly growing city in the 1780’s. An attempt to start anew and breathe new air - and hopefully one that wasn’t worthless.

 

Decades passed and again she witnessed war in the earliest of the 1800s, this time Austria’s opponent was France, the papers full of the slaughter of young men and women in Paris. The political upheaval between the floundering Monarchy and blossoming Republic didn’t make for a very easy market to break into. Mircalla couldn’t be bothered as she went about her philanthropic business, paying visits to the shops of books and clothes she managed. Her lack of attention was not callousness, but simply that she was becoming tired of the repetitive history of man.

 

Yes, Vienna was certainly lovely in the spring. 

* * *

 Mircalla sighed and ran through her numbers again. Someone was skimming off the top in one of her establishments. For the fifth time. She was growing tired of her businesses and paused to lean back in her chair. Her eyes fell to the draw that held the legal documents to either pass on or help dissolve her businesses and for the upteenth time she fiddled with the small iron key on her belt loop. Perhaps now that the more Liberal-leaning Cabinet had fallen that year…

 

_Not yet_. She told herself and got back to work. 1879 might be a difficult year but probably not the best one to retire in.

* * *

 

_“-_ _White Star liner Olympic reports by wireless this evening that the Cunarder Carpathia reached, at daybreak this morning, the position from which wireless calls for help were sent out last night by the Titanic after her collision with an iceberg-“_

 

The rest of the article blurred in front of Carmilla’s eyes, the freshly printed New York Times screaming of over a thousand lives lost at sea crinkling in her shaking hands. Yells of anxiety and anguish in Times Square fell to a muffled drone as people pushed around her on the crowded concrete sidewalk.

 

Some of her friends had been on that ship.

* * *

 It came in the form of a letter from one of her great great nieces. Another of their family snatched by war, this time in late November of 1916 at the end of the battle of Somme. She had urged the children not to join up with the Austria-Hungary Military… but of course their Patriotic blood and arrogance of invincibility due to their agelessness led them to their end.

 

Mircalla tossed the letter onto her desk and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Chilled to the bone by the creeping New York winter, her tears scorched her cheeks. 

* * *

 

Another newspaper glared up at the tired Countess in loud blocky lettering, boldly proclaiming on March 12, 1938, “ ** _ANSCHLUSS!_** ”

 

Mircalla had seen enough conflict that too many red flags were flying up with this upstart Austrian-Born German authoritarian, Adolf Hilter. She didn’t particularly care for how the annexation of her country into Germany had happened either, but perhaps this would provide a much-needed economic boost. Many of her shops had been forced to close and while she wasn’t hurting too terribly financially, her mild-mannered employees were. Austria really needed the support and Mircalla was ready for it.

* * *

 Relief, finally.

 

If only she had known how wrong she had been in hoping for change almost ten years ago Mircalla would have never voiced her tentative support for the joining of Austria and Germany. Too many lives lost, too many ways of life destroyed, too many of her friends murdered in the battlefields and in the camps, too many taken because of the greed of man.

 

Too. Many.

 

The Countess shuttered her old hilltop mansion, instructed the housekeepers to at least keep it from falling down, and left Styria. It would be decades before she returned.

 

Mircalla was tired. 

* * *

 Mircalla sat in her office, papers in hand and her white blocky PC humming along warmly in front of her. She had returned to her home in the late 80’s after ending a relationship with a lovely woman named Elle. They kept up correspondence but the woman had a wife of her own now and was nearing 30, raising two small children. She was “Aunt Calla” to the boys and had phone calls regularly on Friday evenings from them. A wall full of family portraits and candid photographs of friends and relatives was where her empty gaze rested, cast in the soft light of her floor lamp. The bay window behind her was thrown open to the cool early summer night, crickets quietly chirping and moths fluttering noiselessly around the candle on the sill.

 

As one of the older remaining humans alive and of a more royal blood, she had been asked to weigh in her opinion on Austria joining the European Union. She had made new friends through this endeavor, one particularly sticking out and becoming like close family. Matska Belmonde was a striking woman, strong of character, wise beyond many, sharper than a tack, and over a thousand years old. She was currently resting her eyes, leaned back in one of the comfortable armchairs by the bay window. She startled when her newspaper slipped from her lap, looking around in mild confusion until she found the crumpled paper on her feet.

 

“Mircalla, dear. I believe we should head to bed. It’s quart past midnight.” She drawled sleepily as she checked the handsome grandfather clock.

 

“I suppose so.” The Countess muttered, heaving herself from her seat and adjusting the cotton lounge pants around her waist.

 

“Did you make much progress?” Matska asked as she pulled the windows shut with a click.

 

“No, not as much as I would’ve liked. But it can wait until tomorrow.”

 

Matska smiled and slung an arm around Mircalla’s slim shoulders. “Darling, we are too old for this.”

 

Mircalla cracked a smile and wound an arm around her friend’s waist. She could only laugh.

* * *

 

“Oh thank _GOD_.”

 

The exasperated exclamation echoed around the boardroom on November 17, 2009. The ever-young, smartly dressed Countess Karnstein looked up from her Macbook in mild embarrassment, flapping a hand in half-apology and half-dismissal. Her dark eyes roved across the blurb of an article explaining that the SPÖ had finally approved a registered partnership bill that covered equal rights in labor, immigration, pension, taxes, and most important to her-civil law to same-sex couples as opposite-sex couples. It wasn’t the equal representation of marriage and the attached stipulations to such a status, but it was at the very least starting the recognition that all couples should be equal under the law.

 

A weight she didn’t know that had been on her shoulders lifted and for the first time that day Mircalla took an easy breath.

* * *

Carmilla groaned and pushed herself up on her elbows. The soft cotton sheets on her stiff twin bed encouraged her to lie back down, but the blaring alarm from her phone next to her bed shouted otherwise. She pushed her loose messy curls from her face and yawned wide enough for her jaw to crack.

 

"Ngh fine fine..." She grumbled, sluggishly reaching for her phone and silencing the racket.

 

The ungodly hour of 05:55 glared back in a clean san serif, her age-old habit of rising early a thing she cursed about every day (of course it didn’t stop her from napping whenever she wanted-habit she took advantage of and blamed on her old age). Carmilla heaved herself from her bed and shrugged on her running clothes while shoving a nutrition bar into her mouth in just two bites. In the Eighties she added mildly grueling 10-kilometer runs to give her something else to do. It was mindless exercise that helped her forget that she was still very much eighteen after three centuries. The year 2014 was shaping up to be a rather boring one in Austria, her interest in the news following the civil uprisings in the US with a heavy heart.

 

The young Countess (in secret now the past few years, she found the press to be increasingly difficult and easier to deal with if they were under the impression that she was holed up in her family home) stretched languidly and sighed as she flopped in half at the waist. Carmilla made quick work of her shoelaces and stretched her hamstrings, mentally planning out her day. She had enrolled in Silas University earlier that year, ready to learn something else after having taken a thirty-year break. This would be her seventh basic degree, not including her four Masters and two PHD's. In the sixties she had hoped she would find whom she was looking for, staying in schools for years but to no avail. That tell-tell twang in her chest that all of her friends had described was absent. She tried again in the eighties (Elle had been a marathon runner, hence the habit), but when neither one of them aged after three and a half years they wished each other luck and said their goodbyes. About every other month she still received a Friday night phone call from at least one of Elle’s children. Now she was back in school out of sheer boredom, her new subject Philosophy.

 

Carmilla slipped on her wrist watch and made a half-assed attempt at making her bed, deciding she's straighten a bit more before her new roommate showed up later that day. Carmilla would have preferred a single dorm room but that would have meant confirming her status-which was not high on her list of priorities. She had taken a few minutes to look the girl up on Facebook-Betty was her name. She looked studious enough and Carmilla figured she wouldn't have any problems from her. A polite exchange of messages over social media confirmed that a few weeks prior.

 

Carmilla sighed.

 

She was done with screwing around. She was tired and had lost hope a long time ago. Carmilla yawned again and threw her hair up into a tight ponytail, grabbed her key and exited the room. Today was feeling like ten kilometers wouldn't cut it.

 

Ten turned into fifteen and Carmilla was pretty sure she could use a nap if she ever made it back up the three flights of stairs to her room. Brothers of the Zeta Omega Mu fraternity were obnoxiously helping new freshmen to their rooms, clogging the stairs and bellowing chants that made her ears ring. One of the "Bros" saw her trapped and kindly barreled a path up the last flight of stairs. He introduced himself as Kirsch as politely as he could before throwing her a _"see ya lil hottie!"_ before galloping away after a tall amazonian red head all puppy eyes and goofy smiles. Carmilla watched them go, noticing they were older than eighteen. Her mood soured immediately and she turned to trudge the long length of the hall.

 

Carmilla jumped to the side as another pair of aging red heads directed a flock a new students to the activities center. The floor don Lola Perry sent her a tight yet kind smile and Carmilla reluctantly met LaFontaine's enthusiastic high five. Carmilla noted wryly that had the scientist wannabe known they had just high-fived one of Austria’s elite they might’ve keeled over from shock.

 

The door to room 307 was thrown wide open and a few boxes sat outside the threshold. Carmilla stepped over them and stumbled into the room with a muffled curse. The room was empty but boxes were stacked on the right side of the room and two suitcases were thrown on the twin bed opposite hers. Carmilla toed off her shoes in the corner and eased herself onto the floor to stretch. She figured it would be less awkward if she were dressed when Betty came back.

 

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make such a mess!"

 

Carmilla jumped in surprise, a new voice at the door startling her from her thoughts. She flipped her loose bangs out of her face and looked up, but her breath caught in her throat. Standing in the door was a tiny compact brunette with bright eyes and tanned skin. She was young, but the way she carried her shoulders spoke of decades. They locked eyes and Carmilla felt her stomach summersault and her heart leapt in her chest. She couldn't help but let her mouth fall open in shock and gape like a fish. Something clicked.

 

It was _her_.

 

After so so long, it she had finally found her.

 

They stared at each other in silence, and relief flooded through Carmilla when the look of realization and joy danced across the other woman’s face.

 

"You're not Betty." Spilled bluntly from the Countess's mouth before she could stop herself, but the elated laugh from her new roommate wiped any embarrassment from her mind. Carmilla clambered to her feet and tried not to feel self conscious about the sweaty mess she was, but that too floated out of her mind when the tiny woman spoke up.

 

"No, I'm not Betty. There was a screw up at the registrar's office and well... Here I am."

 

"Here you are." Carmilla echoed, the corners of her lips tugging into a grin.

 

The Countess watched the brunette step clumsily over her boxes and into their room, afraid to look away from each other's faces and completely forgetting the door was standing wide open.

 

"How long?"

 

The question broke Carmilla out of her reverie of shamelessly trying to memorize her face.

 

"I beg your pardon?"

 

"I've waited seventy-three years. I wondered if attending school again would raise my chances..." She smiled thinly, sadness tugging at her mouth.

 

"Oh..." Carmilla swallowed and furrowed her brows, finding her neon sock feet incredibly interesting. Beating around the bush wasn’t an option and she resolved to be as truthful as she could. "Well, as of this summer, three hundred and seventeen I believe... I was born in 1680."

 

The room was silent save for their soft breathing and the move-in hubbub out in the hall. Carmilla was afraid for some inexplicable reason that this new information would scare off her... What was she exactly? They had just met but it was so much more than that. She could feel the pull and the bridged building between them already even after a few scant moments. The Countess glanced up nervously when warm fingers brushed the back of her hand and was met with a soft smile and damp eyes.

 

"Sounds like you probably have some good stories to share."

 

Carmilla laughed freely and tangled their fingers together easily. "Cutie, you have no idea."

 

"Cutie? Already on to nicknames?" She quirked a brow playfully.

 

"Well I don't know the name of such a beautiful woman, I fear I'm at a loss for general manners." Carmilla responded airily in kind.

 

"Laura. I go by Laura now."

 

"Middle name?"

 

"After my mother, yes."

 

"It's a very fitting name."

 

Laura blushed prettily and ducked her head for a moment, her lip caught in her teeth when the Countess rubbed her thumb along hers.

 

"And what about you, oh mysterious one?"

 

"I..."

 

Carmilla paused, her habit of privacy throwing her in a loop for just a moment. Her face settled into her business expression and she squared her shoulders slightly.

 

"I am Countess Mircalla Karnstein of Styria. No wait!" She held up her free hand in reassurance when Laura's face fell slack in shock, relaxing her posture again. "I'm only that woman when I need to be. Please, it is not information I give out lightly anymore."

 

"Oh-of course. I won't tell a soul." She nodded resolutely, and Carmilla believed the determination in her expression. “Not until I actually have to deal with it.” She tacked on with a bob of her head, an action that made Carmilla smile.

 

"No, I hope you won’t have to for a while either. It’s exhausting… I'm Carmilla now."

 

Laura studied her face, absentmindedly swinging their hands in between them.

 

"Well… we have a lot to learn about each other. Carmilla." She tested the name on her tongue.

 

"Would it be rather forward of me to kiss you?" Carmilla breathed, wanting very much to give in to the brunette's natural pull.

 

“You kind of stink.”

 

Carmilla’s jaw dropped in shock. The only other person so bluntly candid with her was her sister Matska and she choked back a laugh.

 

“That’s what happens when you run you know. But my question remains unanswered.” She countered slowly, fear that she had overstepped creeping in.

 

Laura narrowed her bright eyes in mirth and studied her new partner’s face for a quiet moment.

 

"Runner’s stink be damned. Under normal circumstances I would say _back off_ , but I don’t think this falls under that particular category. Do you?"

 

Carmilla's breath caught in her throat a second time that morning as Laura stepped in close. She could see the flecks of gold in her irises and a faint fragrance of mint and rosemary tickled her nose. She was even more perfect up close, right down to the small freckle next to her lip and the creases at the corners of her eyes. Laura paused and waited, clearly expecting Carmilla to take the lead-and so she did, carefully leaning in and pressing her lips gently onto Laura's. It was soft and warm, but unwavering.

 

Safe.

 

Warmth blossomed in her chest and their arms snaked around each other's shoulders and waists, pulling each other in so tight they could feel their hearts trying to burst from their ribs. The open door and Laura's boxes and Carmilla's sweat were all forgotten. They were no longer important. What mattered most to Carmilla was the affection freely given-affection she was more than happy to return until the day she died.

 

Laura wasn’t just Laura. It was finding her partner, her friend, her soul mate. It was coming home after being lost for so long through the ages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
